The Danger of No Dig | A Personal Story

hello and a very warm welcome back to the Garden let's talk about no dig there's many things that have been kind of burning in the back of my mind for a long time and I thought you know what stuff it I'll put my neck on the line and uh approach it from a very practical accessible way because I am fed up of all of these interesting well not really interesting all of these debates of people saying oh no you used a fork to harvest some of your potatoes you're a terrible Gardener I just think you know there's far bigger problems in the world I think sometimes it's important to have perspective and I just want to start by saying if someone is growing their own food whether they're double digging or no digging it's better than not growing any food whatsoever you know what's the alternative going to a supermarket and buying it from some massive monoculture fields or like virtually all salads that you buy in a supermarket don't even know what soil because they're grown hydroponically and so I think I think having a little bit of a reality check is quite important now of course I would class myself as a no dick Gardener but the challenge is that the term no dig it's it's when you define something by what it's not doesn't really give you Clarity because you know you could hear no dig and you're like so how do I plant an apple tree or is it like no dig but can I fork and I also think that the term no dig sounds a little bit strict and I have definitely fallen into the Trap of of feeling guilty of using a fork or a spade because of no dig because when it's like no D or nobody actually have to dig something up to move it out of the garden one of the things I want to get across with no dig is that perhaps a a nicer way of thinking about it or approaching it because I don't want you guys to feel guilty and I think sometimes there comes a time where we do need to disturb the soil but I think the the overall goal of no dig that I really love is that it's about minimal disturbance to the soil and so minimal disturbance feels so much more achievable than a like blanket no dig it also is much easier to understand because minimal means it doesn't mean nothing at all so it's not like you're gonna get guilt tripped and disturbance what is disturbance well it could be digging it could be forking the soil and so suddenly I think it feels a lot more attainable so with minimal disturbance the the question might arise of when can I disturb the soil or when should I disturb the soil and let's do a little pattern recognition thing based off permaculture so in in nature where do we see annuals where do annuals appear what is their role annuals appear very quickly after ground has been Disturbed this could be something like a tree falling over and exposing bare soil or it could be something like a pig snuffling through the ground looking for some tubers and so the the role of annuals is that they grow really really quickly so they can cover the soil nature never wants to have bare soil because where you have bare soil you have erosion and so the role of the annuals really fast growing to protect the soil and so it's that disturbance that kicks the annuals into gear because that disturbance will kill off some of the soil life in order to access nutrients nutrients have to go through biology in order to be plants available to be taken up by those roots so that disturbance will kill off some bacteria and some fungi and it will release a load of nutrients that are plant available into the soil which annuals which are far more nutrient hungry than perennials are like yes this is great they're like it's like going to a party and eating all the cake no it's not well it is but maybe cake is a little bit of an example it's like going to a tapas bar and then once those annuals have established you then get a succession where you get biannuals coming in and then short-lived perennials and then eventually trees and stuff if I left this land over time it'll kind of turn into scrublands and then trees will come through and that's just Nature's succession this is maybe unpopular opinion but in a vegetable garden when you disturb the soil a bit you release a lot of nutrients and so that might be a really good time to sow a bunch of annual vegetable seeds I'm not saying it is quite thing to do but I'm just saying that in nature that's what tends to happen now the nice thing about no dig is with minimal disturbance you're not going to have as much weed pressure and by minimal disturbance you have minimal weeds because they're not needing to repair the soil the health of the soil as a gardener should always be your main priority and if you understand the fundamentals of a healthy soil which is lots of organic matter lots of diversity in terms of the things growing lots of carbon which comes from that organic matter you need water and finally as little disruption as possible what this creates is an environment for a lot of microbiology and tiny little things that you can't see that make the soil alive and living when you're adding compost to the soil you're adding a lot of fertility and you're increasing the immune system of the soil and if you think about it say say a healthy immune system in a human body when you have a cold or something you can shake it off pretty well and come back stronger or at least come back to where you were before the cold and it's the same thing I think in the garden if you cause a little bit of disturbance as long as you have that Baseline that foundation with plenty of organic matter in the soil and plenty of microbes and fungi all around the place where you've created that disturbance I think nature works so fast at just being able to repair itself I don't worry too much about if I have a massive parsnip or carrots or something and it's in the middle of winter and I have to put a fork into really loosen it up or with leaks I don't mind it's going to damage some biology because I have absolute faith that the soil is just going to repair itself because all of the ingredients are there to repair itself it's a self-repairing system provided that we add that compost year on year and we don't keep it completely bare to the elements when it's like dig versus no dig I think again that's just too reductionist comparing the old traditional method of double digging that's like putting soils through a washing machine is very very very um destructive whereas it's very different to digging a little small hole that you then pack with maybe lots of manure and then you put a potato in it and then you cover it back over and then you use a fork to harvest it later on because you're not causing so much churn one of the debates that I don't think really does anyone any favors is like the staunch no diggers versus diggers and when I mean diggers I mean gardeners that double dig and do that year one year when you when you have extremes extremes lead to kind of views that turn into ideologies and when it becomes an ideology you're so kind of steadfast in that ideology that when a practical argument comes in that threatens that ideology you hold on to it even tighter I think that there's this nice clear Common Ground between the two extremes where gardening exists for most gardeners where there's a time and a place for everything for a lot of you that I know that are watching this channel you're trying to grow food to feed yourself and to feed your families and there are going to be times where it might make more practical sense or more economic sense to disturb the soil a little bit and that's absolutely okay provided that in the long term you just understand about trying to look after the soil as best as you can because we can't be perfect and I don't think we should be perfect nature isn't perfect and also moles do a lot of digging so I think they should get banned they should get canceled from nature over the last couple of growing Seasons this has definitely been something very much in the front of my mind in terms of thought because I've noticed times where I've I've had to disturb the soil in order to improve it in a very rainy climate if you're growing annuals and then you harvest and then you put down some compost but then you get loads of rain especially over winter rain can cause soil compaction and when you have soil compaction you lose that aeration it's much harder for water to drain out of the soil or to even penetrate the soil in the first place when it comes to dry weather and then a bit of rain and you want it to make a difference but it doesn't when you get anaerobic areas of soil that can certainly be an invite for some pathogens to take over which can then spiral into pests and diseases and so this year I I've ended up broad forking quite a few raised beds at least 15 years old even though I was doing no dig for all of this time I couldn't put my hand in and I think if I was putting two or three inches so like five to seven centimeters of compost on top each year I think it would be fine but that's quite expensive um and I'm trying to be cautious about how much money I spend growing food I just don't want to Splash out because then it kind of defeats the purpose of trying to save money in a garden and I just thought something has to change and so I use a broad Fork where you just use it to gently pop open the soil it helps aerate it you're not turning over any soil it is far less disturbing than even say harvesting potatoes but it just pops it up and I could sink my hand right down into the soil immediately afterwards and that's a great time where you can then water in something like lab or Jordan microbial solution so you can add a load of microbes into the soil and it's a great time to sew because suddenly there's no compaction in the soil and so plant roots are going to grow deeper when you have deeper plant roots you then have more resilient plants I would have broad fought these beds two years ago but guilt stopped me um and now I've realized that the there's far more important things in life like actually producing food I know there'll certainly be some comments on this video or on future videos that criticize me allowing minimal soil disturbance and all I have to say to that is is actually just take a step back and just open your mind a little bit because rather than focusing on the fine details like it's quite hard to criticize a gardener if you've never actually been to their Garden or you don't know what their goals are every single Gardener has their own unique goals as well as shared goals and they also certainly take great pride in approaching things in a pragmatic way rather than being chained to Dogma I firmly believe in no dig especially if you're comparing it to Double D and I certainly believe in no dig benefiting a lot more people than electric culture because you show me a rainforest where you've got copper wires that have magically appeared but it's about keeping it accessible if we see it as minimal disturbance Suddenly It's accessible we can forgive ourselves about sometimes having to cause a little destruction to the soil because our long-term goal is providing nourishment for our families

Channel: Huw Richards

Views: 251,965

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Id: vLRpSGVi1Ow

Length: 12min 25sec (745 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2023